The building the City of Manteca purchased two years ago from San Joaquin County that once housed a public health clinic will soon be staffed by municipal workers that target quality of life and property upkeep issues.
The structure at 124 Sycamore Avenue across from the former city hall will house the city’s code enforcement, fire prevention, and community service officers.
The three areas of expertise often combine forces to address property and building upkeep and safety.
They are the frontline of efforts to enforce municipal code sections that are in place to enhance public safety and community esthetics such as those addressing the parking of various types of vehicles whether they are trucks, RVs, or inoperable cars.
While all of their duties aren’t interconnected, enough of them are that the move to place them all in one building could help speed up processes.
Building abatement issues, for example, require a long laborious timeline to follow. By having those involved in an issue in the same workplace it has the potential to eliminate lost time when required documents plans are passed from one department to another.
Besides the 10 employees that will be based there, a training conference room will be used by various other city departments to bring more traffic to downtown.
The initial goal was to simply step up municipal personnel presence in the downtown district.
The city actually is already part of downtown. It is the largest property owner even if you exclude sidewalks, streets, alleys, and a couple of municipal parking lots.
Besides the Sycamore Avenue building that was damaged in May of 2018 when a homeless cooking fire got out of control that the city bought from San Joaquin County for $390,000 after it was remodeled, the city owns:
*The library along with Library Park on 2.8 acres.
*Wilson Park behind the post office and two doors north of the Sycamore Avenue building.
*The Tidewater Bikeway that includes a wide swath of land between the tracks and the bike path that Mayor Gary Singh has noted is wide enough to possibly construct a two-lane bypass of Yosemite Avenue.
*The Manteca Transit Center with its community room.
*Land were parking will be created for the ACE passenger train stop targeted to start service later this year.
*A mini-plaza on Maple Avenue across from the post office.
The move will also free up space at the Civic Center.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
